Kalmadi arrested in CWG scam, suspended by Cong

New Delhi, Apr 25 (PTI) Sacked Commonwealth Games (CWG)
Organising Committee (OC) Chief Suresh Kalmadi was on Monday
arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on
charges of cheating, conspiracy and corruption in connection
with awarding some Games contracts and the ruling Congress
Party wasted no time in suspending the Lok Sabha (lower house
of the Indian legislature) Member of Parliament (MP).
Six months after the end of the New Delhi Commonwealth
Games that was mired in controversies and scams, the CBI,
India's premier investigating agency, finally closed in on
66-year-old Kalmadi, the CWG's public face, arresting him for
allegedly awarding illegal contracts to a Swiss firm for
Timing-Scoring-Result (TSR) system for the Games causing a
loss of Rs 95 crore to the exchequer.
A beleaguered Kalmadi's arrest was announced after his
more than four hours questioning at the CBI headquarters, his
fourth since December last, over the alleged irregularities
related to the award of contract to Swiss Timekeeping and the
Queens Baton Relay (QBR).
The agency also arrested two other OC officials
Surjeet Lal, Deputy Director General (Procurement) and A S
V Prasad, Joint Director General (Sports) in the same case.
Kalmadi, who came to the headquarters of the agency
here on Monday morning, was arrested at 1530 hours local time,
a senior CBI official said.
Kalmadi, an MP from the western Indian city of Pune,
and the two other officals will be in CBI custody on Monday
night and they will be produced in a court on Tuesday.
The CBI registered a case under section 120B
(conspiracy) read with Section 420 (cheating) of the Indian
Penal Code (IPC) and other relevant sections of Prevention of
Corruption Act in the case, an official said.
"The CBI has today (Monday) arrested the then Chairman
of OC of Commonwealth Games-2010 for conspiracy to cause
favour to a private firm based in Switzerland in awarding the
contract for Timing, Scoring and Result system at an inflated
cost of Rs 141 crore," CBI spokesperson Dharni Mishra told
reporters.
Kalmadi's arrest came weeks after his close aide and
OC's Secretary General Lalit Bhanot and Director General V K
Verma were arrested in the same case. CBI officials said more
arrests would follow in the case.
Shortly after Kalmadi's arrest was announced, AICC
general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi said the Congress has
suspended Kalmadi.
"The Disciplinary Committee (of the Congress has
suspended Suresh kalmadi from the membership of the party,"
Dwievedi said.
Problems also mounted for Kalmadi in the sphere of
sports administration after his arrest with the Union Sports
ministry writing a letter to the Indian Olympic Association
(IOA) asking it to consider appointing a new president to
replace him.
Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the
Communist Party of India (Marxist) said the arrest of Kalmadi
was "belated" and "just the tip of the iceberg" and that
immediate action should be taken against others involved in
alleged irregularities.
BJP's Vijay Goel demanded the arrest of Delhi Chief
Minister Sheila Dikshit since she has been indicted by by the
Prime Minister-appointed V K Shunglu Committee that probed the
games.

Kalmadi in his defence has always maintained that he
was not the only one involved in the decision-making process
at the OC.
CBI officials said the entire procedure to award the
contract to the firm -- Swiss Time Keeping -- was pre-
meditated and even the OC officials who toed the line of
Kalmadi and other officials were selected to remain in
furtherance of the deal while the ones who did not toe their
line were "thrown out".
The CBI alleged that "officials of the Organizing
Committee had conspired with representatives of the private
firm in Switzerland and the contract for timing, scoring,
result was awarded by wrongfully restricting and eliminating
competition from other suppliers in pre-meditated and planned
manner.
"Investigation has revealed that the Committee for
shortlisting prospective bidders for TSR was constituted by
selecting handpicked officials," the CBI spokesperson said.
Investigation has also revealed that members of the
tenders evaluation committee were coerced and threatened to
disqualify other bidders. It also showed that Indian
representatives of the favoured supplier were in regular
contact with the three arrested Organizing Committee officials
much before the award of tender, the spokesperson added.
"Wrongful loss of approximately 95 crores was caused
to the public exchequer," the agency said.
CBI officials said that while Kalmadi's signatures
were on all documents as he was the head of the executive
board of the OC, they were not going by what the board
approved but by circumstantial evidence and testimonies of
witnesses.
The officials said during their investigations they
found that the firm that lost the bid for TSR against Swiss
Time Keeping-- MSN Spain-- had provided similar service during
the Asian Games which were held recently at Guangzhou.
The CBI, according to sources, also tracked and is
probing a transfer of Rs 23 crore to the Indian representative
of Swiss Time Keeping, located at Hyderabad.
The agency has so far registered ten cases of which
three are related to restoration work of two sporting venues,
two are related to Queen Baton's relay, while one each is
related to overlays, contract given to Swiss Time Keeping, and
contract given to SIS live for the coverage of the Games.
Today was the fourth time that Kalmadi was questioned
by the CBI with the first one being at his residence during
December last year and the other on January 5 at the CBI
headquarters and the third being on March 15.